Since it’s Christmas Day launch in 2021, the James Webb Space telescope has provided those of us back on Earth with some of the most incredible, awe-inspiring photographs of space, as well as aiding astronomers in their deepening understanding of what’s out there beyond the confines of our solar system.

And in a recent article published in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK have revealed the newest discovery using the telescope’s incredible power.

As detailed in their paper, they used NASA’s James Webb Space telescope to observe the growth of a galaxy from the early days of the universe, noting particularly the ‘inside-out’ formation of its growth.

This is particularly notable because this is the earliest ‘inside-out’ galaxy growth ever observed, with the researchers calculating that it happened only 700 million years after the Big Bang – which sounds like a long time here on Earth, but in the timescales of the universe is really nothing at all. And this is all thanks to the James Webb space telescope, which allows researchers to see deeper into space time than ever before, as Dr Sandro Tacchella – co-lead author on the study – notes in a statement from the University of Cambridge:

“The question of how galaxies evolve over cosmic time is an important one in astrophysics. We’ve had lots of excellent data for the last ten million years and for galaxies in our corner of the universe, but now with Webb, we can get observational data from billions of years back in time, probing the first billion years of cosmic history, which opens up all kinds of new questions.”

Though this is a relatively small galaxy, this does not make its discovery any less important. In fact, as Tacchella notes in the statement, it tells us a lot about the way that galaxies formed in early space time. Astronomers are clear that more recent galaxies are created in one of two ways; but with the help of the James Webb telescope, it is possible that older mechanisms will emerge too:

“You expect galaxies to start small as gas clouds collapse under their own gravity, forming very dense cores of stars and possibly black holes. As the galaxy grows and star formation increases, it’s sort of like a spinning figure skater: as the skater pulls in their arms, they gather momentum, and they spin faster and faster. Galaxies are somewhat similar, with gas accreting later from larger and larger distances spinning the galaxy up, which is why they often form spiral or disc shapes.”

After identifying the galaxy, the researchers observed the light that it emitted. The wavelengths of the light was key to their understanding of the way in which the galaxy formed, as they observed numerous photographs taken over time to compare the emergence of stars within it. By comparing how many of the stars were old against how many new ones had emerged, the researchers were able to estimate the mass and formation rate of stars within the galaxy.

Next, the scientists were able to model concepts of gas emission and dust absorption within the forming galaxy. These factors helped them to gain extra insight into the way that this ‘inside-out’ galaxy was formed, helping them to discover that while younger stars formed a kind of growing halo around the galaxy, much older stars were hidden away at its core. It also led them to an astonishing discovery about the speed of this galaxy’s growth, with it doubling its mass every 10 million years (by comparison, it takes the Milky Way 10 billion years to reach such impressive growth).

Happily, the observed formation of the galaxy confirmed modelled theories that until this point had only been hypothetical.

As well as proving their theories accurate, the discovery has been pivotal in the astronomy community’s understanding of galaxy formation, and how the process has developed through billions of years in space time. In particular, the arrangement of dense old stars to the center and young stars forming around its edges suggests that the gas required to form new stars is abundant, with these conditions very different to our newer galaxies.

This provides further depth in our understanding of space, as well as plenty of new questions to be answered, as Tacchella notes in the statement:

“Of course, this is only one galaxy, so we need to know what other galaxies at the time were doing. Were all galaxies like this one? We’re now analysing similar data from other galaxies. By looking at different galaxies across cosmic time, we may be able to reconstruct the growth cycle and demonstrate how galaxies grow to their eventual size today.”

And as astronomers keep peering deep into space and time, who knows what they will find next?

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